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Casey Stengel announces his retirement. While there are many money quotes in this piece, just in casey you don't read all the way to the bottom, here's the killer-diller.
"I have the name of our ballclub on my underpants ... ."[/bigpurple]
Me too!
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Dick Young wrote:
Casey Stengel, waving his weirdly crooked cane over the heads of newsmen shouted: “You don’t expect me to go onto the field and take a pitcher out by putting this around his neck, do you?”
With that vivid picture of his physical incapacity, the wonderful Old Man, 75, announced yesterday he was stepping down as manager of the Mets for reasons of health, and has agreed to work the next two years by helping the Amazins sign much-needed young talent in his home area, California.
Stengel said Wes Westrum, the man he designated interim manager when Casey broke his hip little more than a month ago, will manage for the remainder of the season. Beyond that, Casey doesn’t say. Neither does the rest of the Met hierarchy.
“The people who hired me,” said Stengel, “will decide who will be manager of this club, not Casey Stengel.”
More than possibly, they will consult Stengel, for they respect his judgement. They respected his judgement sufficiently to go along with him when, from his bed in Roosevelt Hospital on July 25, the morning of the fateful fall that broke his hip, Stengel said: “I want Westrum to run the team for me.”
Westrum has been running it exceptionally well, as Stengel pointed out more than once yesterday. The Old Man used such words as “splendid,” and “amazing” and “beautiful” to describe activity and results of Westrum’s management.
Actually, the overall record is 12-and-24, not much more than a good, strong Met pace, but that inches an early 11-game losing streak, mostly on the road and many one-run defeats. Of late, the Mets have been truly amazing, against top-class competition. Of their most recent games, against the Cards, Dodgers and Giants, they won seven of 10, including a first-ever victory over Sandy Koufax, which deserves words like splendid, and amazin’, and beautiful.
Stengel’s valedictory took place in the Colonnades Room of the Essex House, which is the Central Park residence of the Stengels in New York. Their voting residence is Glendale, Calif., where Casey also is vice president of the Glendale Valley National Bank, and one of its biggest depositors.
He was asked, as he sat on the hastily-rigged dais, flanked by Met biggies, if he would be paid the same salary for his new duties as he has received for managing, believed to be $90,000.
The question brought a smile. “I’ll probably be the highest paid scout you ever saw,” he said.
Stengel will be more important than a scout. He will do little scouting, in fact. His job will be to talk to youngsters, those graduating from high school and college, and considered possible free agent draftees.
He will talk with their parents and tell them the advantages of playing with the Mets. He will sell the Mets, which, in reality, is what he has been doing these past four years. He would, when besieged for autographs, rarely duck. He would, when he had time, write a special sentiment for kids of 10, 12 or early-teens. “Join the Mets,” he would write above his signature. “There is quick advancement,” and their eyes would light up as if by magic.
The old Stengel magic was still there yesterday, after some five weeks of convalescence. It was indeed amazin’ to see this proud, 75, walk into the room where newsmen and photogs and TV cameras had been assembled; walk in erect, assisted by his strange black cane, an orthopedic cane which bent off at a 45-degree angle some 10 inches, then bent vertical again to the floor.
“See my shillelagh?” the Old Man cried out as he seated himself on a high stool at the platform. “Peter LaMotte sent it to me.”
On July 28, Dr. Peter LaMotte performed surgery on Case Stengel’s hip. It had been displaced - fractured in a fall that culminated, ironically, Oldtimers’ Day at Shea. This Oldtimer had been the last to leave. He generally is. He has the stamina that outlasts men half his age, men of any age.
Dr. Lammotte inserted into the hip joint a ball made of vitallium, a newly-developed non-ferrous metal. Several days later, Stengel was up and bouncing around on a framework support. A week later than that, he invited newsmen to Roosevelt Hospital for a demonstration of his agility. Another week, and he was out of the hospital, Aug. 18, less than a month post-op. It was amazin’.
In the week that followed, Stengel did some thinking. He did a lot of thinking. He walked across the room with his funny little cane. He tried to imagine it was Shea Stadium, not his room; then, suddenly, he realized what had to be done.
It was last Wednesday, and Dr. LaMotte was there. George Weiss had come to visit him, as George Weiss had done most every day, and this time Don Grant was with him. Edna was there, and the four say and talked pleasantly, about how well the Mets were doing, then Casey said it. He looked at Weiss, the club president, and at Grant, the chairman of the board, and said: I gotta face it. You better count me out for next year.”
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There was no pressure, Stengel insists, and all evidence bears him out. Perhaps there was a little. Dr. LaMotte had told his famous patient he should forget about managing, with it’s terribly accelerated travel pace; that Casey should consider his recovery a miracle insofar as it has gone, and not try to push his luck.
Nobody else pushed him; not Weiss, not Grant, not Edna Stengel. Somebody in the audience yesterday asked him about his wife; had he talked it over with her before making his decision?
“No sir, I didn’t,” he said. “I shoulda, I suppose, but I didn’t. I guess she’s gotta like the idea. She knows I’m gonna be paid.”
Edna Stengel, sitting erectly and beaming proudly, smiled. The newsmen laughed. There was much laughter as Stengelisms were sprinkled throughout the one-hour session.
One yak came when note was taken of the premature announcement of his retirement months ago at City Hall, where Stengel had gone to be honored by Mayor Wagner. It was believed Casey inadvertently had lept it slip he would not be back next year. That was just two days prior to his fall.
“Would you have retired,” Stengel was asked yesterday, “if you had not had this accident?”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t know I was gonna retire at that there time. I have the name of our ballclub on my underpants, so you know I wasn’t thinking of quitting, or I would have torn it off.”
Stengel offered to step into the next room, where there were no ladies present, and show off his fancy underpants and his operation for 50 cents a head. There were lots of laughs, but no takers.
The ladies were Mrs. Joan Payson majority owner of the Mets; Rita Smith, RN; and Edna Stengel.
“Casey made the Mets,” said Mrs. Payson. “New York is not losing him, not really. He will be with us in spring training, and I am sure he will come back for all our big events, such as Oldtimers’ Day.”
They’ll send him home earlier next Oldtimers’ Day. |
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